How Is Katy Perry Channeling Rocky Balboa?

Katy Perry just might be channeling famed cinema underdog, boxer Rocky Balboa, on her new single, “Roar.”
That’s according to songwriter Bonnie McKee, who co-wrote the track with Perry.

“It was just kind of a natural progression for her. She’s grown up and she’s been through a lot and it seemed like the right thing to do,” McKee explained to MTV News on Monday (August 12).

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Perry has certainly made it clear she is no longer a candy-coated California Gurl in the lead-up to the song’s release, having burned her blue wig
and also buried that persona
in the ground.

But, McKee notes, “It wasn’t like a conscious decision, like ’Hey, let’s not do something cutesy.’ It is very ’Rocky.’ Like I said she’s been through a lot, so it makes sense.”

McKee, who has called Perry her “soul mate,”
recalled the circumstances in which the two wrote the track. “We wrote it, I think, it was the spring up in [Perry’s hometown of] Santa Barbara [California]. It was a blast; it’s always fun to go up there,” she said. “We go up there and we camp out in her hometown and kind of get into the vibe.”

The fierce females then headed to the studio and enlisted super-producers Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Cirkut. And, as soon as they laid it down, they knew they had made pop music gold. “It was just one of those moments where there was magic in the studio,” she said. “I think it’s a really unique feeling when you know you’ve captured lightning in a bottle and I feel like we’ve definitely did that.”

Considering that Perry loves cats, did she consciously make so many references to felines with “Roar?” McKee said, “Tigers have always been my spirit animal … and you know she’s got the Katy Cats, so it makes sense that it would be feline driven. I think the ’eye of the tiger’ [lyric] is a pretty strong one and that seems to be the one that people are going to remember.”